


Just Another Day

by Ealasaid



Category: Problem Sleuth (Webcomic)
Genre: Cuddles, M/M, Minor Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-09
Updated: 2011-12-09
Packaged: 2017-10-27 02:42:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,298
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/290788
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ealasaid/pseuds/Ealasaid
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The trip over to the warehouse takes about half an hour, even with your corner-cutting and the fake police light you have to clear traffic.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Just Another Day

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Isa](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Isa/gifts).



Well shit, you think, this cannot be good at all. You’re in Inspector’s office, and it is trashed beyond belief. The bottles are shattered, his fan is knocked over, and his lovely fort is smashed to pieces. 

Worst of all, his favorite tea set was thrown against the wall, and tinkly shards of delicate porcelain decorate the floor under the window. Inspector loved that tea set. It was the set you got him for his birthday last year, something you hunted around for determinedly for nearly two months. The destruction of that tea set would be enough to drive the poor man to tears.

You’re standing in the doorway trying not to mess up the scene and maybe fuck up any clues. It’s hard just standing there, because really you’re quite angry. Normally it’s you who’s getting kidnapped, you or Ace Dick, because you two are the more obviously threatening members of the team. Pickle Inspector can hardly hold up a ring of keys.

You take off your hat and frustratedly run a hand through your hair. You’re about to give up and step inside the room when you notice a little scrap of paper on the threshold. Smoothed out and flattened, it reads in tiny writing:    
Bedlam and Willoughby.

It’s Inspector’s writing, and it’s the cross streets for a warehouse they’d been sleuthing as part of a case for the past few weeks. It’s the fact that the writing is shakily imprecise print instead of his normal calligraphy script that makes you think he might have been trying to make a clue for you. You try to call up Ace Dick but he’s somewhere you can’t find him and you’re too impatient to wait until you get a hold of him. Inspector’s in trouble and goddamn if you’re going to wait around for that jerk anyway.

The trip over to the warehouse takes about half an hour, even with your corner-cutting and the fake police light you have to clear traffic. It’s rush hour and nobody is going to move for you when they can’t move.  

Once you get there, sneaking around the back lets you find a window you can climb in through, and after a bit of scuffling and perilous box piles you hoist yourself through into a dark room with the door conveniently cracked ajar. You figure that’s because the room has a collection of recently-added boxes and odds and ends, none of which look friendly. Through the door, you hear voices.

“...’m not surprised,” someone says coldly.

“‘Pickle Inspector’? What kind of name is that?”

There’s a faint stuttering noise, and your heart thumps because you recognize that sound-- and then there’s a smack and a yelp and you want to murder something. 

“Obviously he inspects pickles,” sneered the first voice. “Tell me Inspector, would you like to inspect my pickle? I’m sure you do quite a bit with your leader’s.”

You look out through the slit. It looks like there are just the two speakers there, and just out of your range in vision you see a pair of skinny legs tied awkwardly to a chair. You think fast, decide to take your chances, and dart out through the door swinging your keyring for the closer guy’s head.

The Prospitan hits the floor without a sound. Luck’s with you today, you just knocked her out. The second guy, a Dersite, yells and pulls out a handgun, but the shot he fires off goes wild and you flinch under his gun and lay one on him, straight to the jaw. He drops like a rock.

“B-b-b-behind y-you!” Inspector says terrified, and you spin around just as a third guy hits you with his pistol. It knocks you down and wow, that hurts. You don’t black out, but it’s something along similar lines. He comes over to you, cursing, after checking his friends. At least you think he does that, because you don’t really notice things until suddenly there are shoes by your head and a foot makes contact with your side. “Oof,” you get out, and sort of flop over.

“Asshole,” the man snarls at you, and makes to kick you again when Inspector shrilly yells “N-no! L-leave him alone!” and the guy whips around and he turns his wrath on your poor Inspector.

It buys you time to grab the second guy’s pistol and aim a shot at his leg. Your aim is horrible, though, so it ends up buried in his shoulder. He staggers screaming in surprise away from the bound Inspector and you shakily get to your feet and advance in a wobbly yet threatening manner. He bolts out of a side door instead. 

You stuff the pistol in your pocket and wheeze over to Inspector, who’s quivering in his chair with eyes as wide as saucers. One of them is blackened and he has a newly split lip that’s just starting to bleed. He looks like any sudden movements would give him a heart attack.

You pull out a switchblade you stole from Spades Slick a year ago (stole as in he left it in your thigh one unlucky night and never came back for it) and cut the shitty rope the people had been using to secure Inspector to the chair. “You all right?” you ask, worried, as he shivers like a startled rabbit and looks at you dazedly.

“Y-yes,” he stammers automatically, and then flinches when you grab an arm to hoist him up. When he lolls back in a dead faint, you curse and realize his arm is broken. Fuckers.

You tie up the two people you knocked out and call the police after settling PI on the floor, where you wait for the ambulance to come once you’re through with the other stuff. At the hospital, you find out you’ve got a cracked rib in addition to a nice shiner, and Inspector will be out of commission for at least a month with his broken arm and light concussion from when they cornered and brained him in his office. The police inform you later that you’ve managed to haul in part of a smuggling ring tied to the case you’d been working on.

“So some good came out of this,” you say optimistically and sling an arm gingerly over his shoulders in the hospital bed you persuaded the nurses to let you crawl into after they served their horrible excuse of dinner. They wanted to keep Inspector in overnight because he appeared so horrifically frail they were worried about shock acting adversely on him or something, and it took a great deal of your pulchritude to convince them to let you stay without keeping a close eye on your Inspector.

“W-what about th-the man you shot?” he asks anxiously, still worried.

You press a kiss soothingly to his temple. “They got ‘im in one of the emergency clinics at another hospital. He’s talking to ‘em right now.”

“He smashed the tea set you got me,” Inspector says sadly, looking as though he thinks you’ll hate him for letting it get destroyed while he guiltily scrunches the sheets in the hand of his unbroken arm. You’d laugh if it wasn’t guaranteed to make him flinch and look even more miserable than he did now.

“It’s all right. I’ll get you another one,” you promise as you stroke his messy hair and kiss him again. He’ll rattle himself to pieces over something like that if you don’t stop it before it starts. “Don’t worry about it, Inny.”

It takes a bit longer to convince him, all mumbled stuttering phrases, but in no time he’s curled up next to you and you’re dozing off in his hair, mostly just glad you’ve still got him to sleep next to.


End file.
